Book review: ‘Deadly Times: The 1910 Bombing of the Los Angeles Times and America’s Forgotten Decade of Terror’

Deadly Times: The 1910 Bombing of the Los Angeles Times and America’s Forgotten Decade of Terror

By Lew Irwin

Lyons, $26.95

Before Sept. 11, 2001 was forever etched into the nation’s psyche, there was Oct. 1, 1910.

On that day, J.B. McNamara, a member of the Iron Workers Union, planted 16 sticks of 80-percent grade dynamite in an empty ink barrel in the Los Angeles Times building.

To insure maximum damage, McNamara found his way to the basement and opened the gas valves. At exactly 1:07am, the bomb exploded engulfing the building in a massive fireball that turned the graveyard shift into a literal graveyard for 20 workers.

The bombing of the L.A. Times remains the biggest mass murder in California history and trails only Sept. 11 and the Muir Building bombing in Oklahoma City for death by terrorism on American soil.

“Deadly Times: The 1910 Bombing of the Los Angeles Times and America’s Forgotten Decade of Terror” written by veteran journalist, Lew Irwin, vividly recounts the destruction of the Times building and the nearly forgotten decade of industrial violence that culminated in this act of unspeakable madness.

Irwin populates his book with a rich cast of memorable characters, none more so than the oddly honorable serial bomber, Ortie McManigal, who successfully blew up at least 150 buildings, bridges or construction sites under the direction of J.J. McNamara, brother of the Times’ bomber J.B., and the Secretary and Treasurer of the Iron Workers Union.

America at the turn of the last century was a deeply divided nation with an enormous disparity between the haves and the have-nots.

Sound familiar?

A century before the 1 percent versus Occupy Wall Street, there was Harrison Gray Otis versus Organized Labor.

Otis, the owner and publisher of the Los Angeles Times, was not only the nation’s most rabidly anti-union voice, he had almost single-handedly made Los Angeles the largest non-union city in the country. Determined to silence Otis, the Times, and punish L.A. for its anti-union bias, the McNamara brothers, assisted by a complex web of like-minded co-conspirators, determined to assassinate Otis and destroy his newspaper, a job the prolific bomber McManigal refused to do.

Destroying property was one thing, what the McNamara’s proposed was cold-blooded murder.

The investigation into the bombing includes dynamic personalities like the dashingly handsome attorney, Earl Rogers, who years later became the inspiration for Perry Mason; William Burns, founder of the Burns Detective Agency and the first director of what was to become the FBI; and legendary defense attorney, Clarence Darrow, whose efforts to bribe the jury nearly sent him to prison.

“Deadly Times: The 1910 Bombing of the Los Angeles Times and America’s Forgotten Decade of Terror” is a vivid account of a nearly forgotten yet hugely important chapter of American history and also serves as a cautionary tale for our deeply divided times.

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Along with the 20 souls who perished in the blast, the American Labor movement nearly died as well. A nation sympathetic to the McNamaras and believing in their innocence reacted with shock and disgust when the facts proved their guilt.

Harrison Gray Otis advocated extremist views against organized labor, but it was the McNamara’s perverse actions — killing workers to help the workingman, that set back the cause of labor nearly 25 years.

Doug McIntyre is a columnist for the L.A. Daily News and can be heard on Talk Radio AM 790 KABC weekdays from 5-9 a.m.